Support The Multiflora Music Festival – Search for Sanctuary 2017

Multiflora is launching a multicultural festival in Washington, DC. You can help make this happen.

Multiflora is launching a multicultural festival this October that will be spread across multiple venues throughout the district; it is a celebration of the history, culture and artistic expressions of D.C. and throughout the globe. Art, music and our communities are inextricably linked to and profoundly impacted by the diverse cultures found throughout the world. Our mission is to present international artists from abroad as well as showcase the diverse multicultural communities in the region.

We started Multiflora Productions in 2012 as a platform for presenting genre-bending, trend-defiant original music in the nation’s capital. For a sprawling global region that holds more than 6 million people, the city was lacking venues whose music programming reflected the long storied multicultural and international flavor of the city. You wouldn’t believe the level of world class bands that were having a hard time finding shows in D.C. Aside for some great music programming in museums and the occasional booking for tried and true acts at bigger venues, a scarcity of smaller to mid-level venues is all that exists for emerging touring and local artists to play.

We are the capital city for a nation of immigrants and we need to celebrate our proud immigrant communities with a festival that ties the connections of local and global but also traditional and the modern; unarguably D.C. has the creativity, the history and the work ethic to drive it. We have for the last 5 years cultivated and worked with a reliable network of generous and supportive venues and arts centers and we will ask them to continue to help us as we expand into: free and all ages outdoor concerts, a panel discussion led like a community meeting on multiculturalism in the local arts scenes, and educational outreach through workshops and instruction.

We want the festival to be as self-sustainable as possible. Inspired by the annual Chicago World Music festival which takes place all across multiple venues over the course of one month, we decided that we would build a similar festival in D.C. and at this stage we need a little more help from all of you that have helped us get this far.

As you might imagine, the costs of running a festival can be staggering and your purchase of our perks will help launch this first festival; with the funding to bring artists who are coming as far away as Western Sahara and Peru, helping us purchase advertising both print and online to reach as many people in the region as possible, renting sound equipment, paying the sound engineers and lodging for musicians.

We are charging entrance fees to our shows but you can purchase entrance to all or some of the shows with a perk and we are keeping the ticket prices low to be accessible to more people. Your donations will help us offset production costs to secure touring headliners from overseas and to expand budgets to bring in special guest musicians for several stages during the course of the festival.

This October we will establish the festival together and it will be a celebration of the deep and historic multicultural communities in the Washington D.C. region. It will be a once in a lifetime experience, it will be enriching and mind-expanding and it will be a true representation of what D.C. holds in its heart and soul; artistry, community, multiculturalism, hard work and taking time to celebrate with your friends, neighbors, and loved ones.